Shopping Trip

We were running out of just about everything so, even though Norma thought she might be coming down with a little of whatever I had, we asked Humberto to phone a cab for us and we went to the Mega store in Cuernavaca. It is about 20 KM and the cab fare was 150 pesos ($11.50) each way.

We shopped for a good hour, filled the cart, had a coffee in the store cafe, paid our 2000 peso ($160) bill and caught a cab home. Like I say, we were low on pretty much everything as it has been over a month since we were in a "real" grocery store. We are stocked up again. The most expensive thing we bought was ground coffee, about 260 pesos ($20) for three pounds. Mexican coffee is very good but it is not cheap. One of the reasons so many Mexicans use instant coffee (yuk).

We had a few other things to do in the City but neither one of us was feeling good enough for walking too far so we will save haircuts and lunch for another day.

The car painter is Humberto's employee's neighbor so I asked him to check on the progress of the paint job and to find out how much longer it will be. I am not expecting it to take less than the original estimate of ten days but thought I should let the guy know I was asking about it. I do not want him to think there is no rush and maybe take on another job in the meantime. It is amazing how often we wish we had the car. It has been gone five days now. We will end up being here for two weeks, maybe more.

I Think I Will Live

I feel 100% better today. Still a long way from my old self but definitely on the mend. We will put our shopping trip off for another day. A taxi into Cuernavaca costs 150 pesos ($11.50) each way, a lot cheaper than renting a car. The Mega grocery store is only a couple of blocks from the Cortez Palace Plaza so we will go there, have a look around, maybe have lunch and then walk to the store.

This is the fourth day since the painter and his charming daughter drove off in the Honda. He said it would take him ten days and I did not argue, it takes what it takes. We sure do miss the convenience of being able to jump in the car and running to the market for salad stuff or whatever. Maybe it was a good thing that Norma insisted on bringing so much canned and frozen food along!

Bye, little Honda!

The Bigger They Are......

The Harder They Fall! I am down and out with a headache, sneezing, coughing cold! Our planned taxi ride, shopping trip into Cuernavaca has been canceled. I will stay in bed with water, soup and Tylenol.

El Paraisio RV Park, Cuernavaca

Here are some photos I took during a walk around yesterday. There are not many RVs here right now. The only occupied units are a young family from Mexico City, a young couple from Switzerland and us. The final photo is our shaded spot, the same spot we had when we were here for Christmas a few years ago.

Paint Job!

Humberto came through with a car painter! He asked his employee if he knew of someone and was told that he had a friend who was a good painter. He came at 10:00 to have a look at the car. He identified all the rust spots and problem areas and said he could do the complete job for 4,500 pesos ($350 CAN). He also pointed out that the drivers side doors had been repainted, something I of course knew about but my eye was not good enough to notice. This is a great price and about 1/3 of the 12,000 pesos we were quoted in Mazatlan. You have to love small town Mexico! I gave him 2000 pesos for material, he took the gas cap cover off for matching purposes and is going to buy paint today. He is even going to remove and paint the hubcaps. He will bring his helper back and pick up the car in two hours.

The only unfortunate thing is, he needs to take the car away for "approximately ten days" to complete the job! This will be inconvenient but Humberto assured us that taxis are readily available and come right to the park when he calls them. He says taxi rates all the way to Cuernavaca (15 - 20 KM) are very reasonable and much cheaper than renting a car.

Before:

After: Oops, wait ten days!

El Mogote to Cuernavaca

It was not a bad night last night. We went to sleep early because it was very dark and quiet but a little too cool for just a sheet. At 4:00 AM the neighbor turned a radio on quite loud and left it on. I am not sure if he was telling us to move on or what. Anyway, we left at about 8:00 and continued on the narrow, winding road towards Mex 95D between Acapulco and Mexico City. It was a fairly short drive of 60 KM or so but a lot of it driving very slow on the narrow, sometimes steep road.

We found our turnoff to the village where El Paraiso RV Park is and followed the Church's directions to the road leading to the park. At that point we had a "discussion" as to whether we were on the right road. I remembered it from 2007 but Norma was sure we were on the wrong road. We stopped, she got out and flagged down a motorcycle taxi to lead us and just as we were about to head out Humberto, the owner of the RV park stopped in his car. We paid the taxi and Humberto lead us to the park. It was exactly where I was going to drive before we had the "discussion"!

We parked, hooked up and paid for one week. The new rate is 380 pesos a night but he recognized us from last time and gave us a special "Returning Customer Rate" of 1750 pesos a week. I like Humberto. He was the guy who, in 2007, let us struggle with our very poor Spanish asking for a parking space. After a very frustrating couple of minutes he said, "If you are more comfortable with English we can speak that. I worked as an electrical engineer in the USA for 35 years".

Humberto has phoned an auto painter who is coming tomorrow to give us an estimate to paint the Honda. It is an '89 that just will not die. We do not want a factory perfect job, just repair a couple of rust spots, sand and spray it. As long as it looks good from 20 feet away, that is good enough.

We are having trouble finding the StarChoice signal. We will try again after dark when I can see the TV through the window.

EDIT: After I struggled for a good hour with the dish, getting the odd "flash" of signal and then immediately loosing it, Norma gave it a try. Sure enough, two minutes later she had it! I tightened everything down and locked it in. Success!!

Morelia to El Mogote

We left the Pemex after a less than satisfying sleep. We were parked too close to the banios and truckers would park right beside us, leaving their engines running while they did their business.  I was a little tired when we left and we were pretty sure we would not make it to Cuernavaca today. There is a way more direct route but it involves driving close to Mexico City. So close that we get into the Hoy No Circula (Today You Do Not Circulate) area where you can only drive on certain days according to your license plate number.  It is a very complicated system, not just even and odd, and is best steered away from as fines are steep.

We headed down the long route suggested in the Church's book towards the silver mining and jewelery making town of Taxco. This involved getting around or through Toluca. Going through was not an option after our experience there in 2008 when we inadvertently drove into the center of town and had to hire a taxi to lead us out. We were very lucky the police did not notice us then.

This time we checked Google Maps for a bypass and found that the Libramento de Toluca was now completed all the way around the industrial city of Toluca. We asked at a toll booth and were assured it was open, we could use it and the Hoy No Circula rules did not apply even though it was close to the D.F. It cost us a lot in tolls ($85 CAN for the day) but kept us out of the "city"!

The road from Toluca towards Taxco is a series of very steep hills, most heading down as we lose a great deal of altitude along this route. As we drove into the village of El Mogote, we remembered that we had found a great boondocking spot here in 2008. It is a parking lot next to a school and is right on a small lake! Being it was Friday night we knew there would be no problem parking here for the night. We put out the slide and walked down the street for a (not all that great) seafood dinner. I had garlic shrimp and they were cooked with the head and peel on, a pretty messy thing to eat while Norma had shrimp "natural" which were quite small and not all that flavorful. Oh well, it could have been worse. El Mogote is near the bottom of the "loop" on the map below.

When we got back to the rig it was 87 inside and outside! We fired up the generator and air conditioning, made a pot of coffee and settled down for the night. Tomorrow is another day and a short drive to Cuernavaca!

Oh yes, we were stopped in a State Police check today. They were parked beside the road and as we approached, they motioned us to the side of the road. They were very pleasant and shook our hands before inquiring where we were going and asking for the temporary import papers for the motorhome. They examined the documents carefully before handing them back and wishing us a good journey. They did not ask to look inside.

Here is our parking spot. Just before sunset a group of young men came and threw a net in the water right beside us. Within minutes they had a net full of small sardine like fish!

It is 7:00 PM and is still 84 outside. We will only need the sheet tonight!

Hacienda Contreras to Morelia

After paying our electric bill, we said our final goodbye’s by 10:30 this morning and pulled out. The electric is metered and charged at 3 pesos ($.24) per KWH. In 21 days we had gone through 308 KWH’s for a cost of 924 pesos or about $72 CAN. This is higher than normal for the park but we used our electric heater a lot at night. The nightly rate at HC is so low that even with the electric it is still very cheap, about $12.85 per day for us. Much cheaper if you conserve your electric usage. Hacienda Contreras is very reasonably priced for a very well managed park with good water and excellent showers. Thanks again Barb and Sal.

We followed the bumpy road to Mex 110 and turned north. It was a pretty good road through nice farm country on free roads. We stopped for propane which in Mexico is not propane, but butane. The two are completely interchangeable in warm weather but we have to get rid of it before we go back home where it is cooler. The cost for 20 liters was 130 pesos ($10.11 CAN).

We had one little adventure along the way. There was a confusing turn in Sahuayo and we ended up on the wrong road. There was no room to make a u-turn so we followed the road for a bit. I got out to investigate one possible spot and a gentleman who was sweeping his walkway asked me if I needed help. I told him we had a large moto-casa and needed to make a u-turn. He told me to carry on a hundred meters and turn right on the dirt lane and it would loop back. It was a pretty rough road but it got us back to the intersection. Another friendly, helpful Mexican! It always amazes me that so many people will not travel in Mexico. We passed two Federal Police checkpoints today and were waved through both. There is a police and military presence on the highways and we feel completely safe. We always have. Any bad guys that may be around are not interested in us, they are frying much bigger fish.

We finally got on the Cuota (Toll) road MEX 15D at La Barca. Two toll booths later as we approached the turnoff for Morelia we saw a sign saying there was a Pemex gas station in 40 KM. We had no other reason to go to Morelia other than to sleep so we pushed on to the Pemex. It is a large station with lots of parking out back so we bought 1500 pesos worth of regular gas and asked the attendant if we could park. He was a very pleasant young man who had lived in Seattle. I asked him if he had worked in Seattle and with a twinkle in his eye he said, “No working, I have no visa”. That usually means he was caught and deported. He said we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted.

It is 5:00 PM, 86 outside and 81 inside. Norma is running the generator and the air conditioner. There is a restaurant on the property that we may or may not go to later. We had a large lunch just three hours ago. There is no Internet service here for my Telcel stick so I will send this tomorrow. We have movies on the PVR for tonight.

Look Where We Are Headed!

The City of Eternal Spring! The city Cortez (bad guy) chose for his palace. Sixty KM south of Mexico City. Tonight we will boondock in Morelia, about a four or five hour drive away and about the same distance again tomorrow to Cuernavaca. Road Trip!

Norma! Where are my short pants?

One Day More

We rested too much yesterday and did not get much done in the way of preparations to leave. So... we will be here one more day and will leave tomorrow FOR SURE. I will use my time to do a wrap up posting of some photos I want to share.
Mazamitla
Mazamitla is the larger of the two towns near Hacienda Contreras, the other being Valle de Juarez. It is about 10 KM west of Hacienda Contreras and is designated a Pueblo Magico. It was founded by the Aztecs in 1165. It's name comes from the Nahuatl language and means, "The place where arrows to hunt deer are made". The emblem of the city is the deer.

The dyed chicks are for sale everywhere. If you buy one they pop them into a plastic bag, punch a few air holes in it and hand it to the buyer. I am told they eventually shed the dyed feathers and become regular chickens. The stand in the market sells pizza slices. I have bought pizza several times in Mexico and find they do not use tomato sauce (or at least not much of it) on their pizza. Most people add catsup which is not the same thing. It is not bad though as they are usually generous with the cheese.

Mazamitla’s central Jardine is very beautiful and is kept spotlessly clean. We stopped at a tiny coffee shop for a Cappuccino for me and a Latte for Norma. We ordered inside and sat at two of four chairs on the sidewalk out front. 

This was a huge group of Priests outside the church. They all appeared to be young but when I asked a man who was watching if they were “Nuevo Padres” he said “no”. Maybe it was some kind of a Priest convention. Anyway they were all happy and busy taking each other’s photos.